A smart grid is a complex electricity network that covers electricity delivery and information exchange from energy suppliers to sub-stations, homes/buildings, and vice versa. A local area network (LAN), e.g., a home area network (HAN) connects or couples smart devices with a utility gateway (e.g., smart meter) or a service provider gateway (e.g., a router or a set-top box) and is quite important for the smart grid.
In a conventional local area network, electric vehicles, air conditioners, experimental facilities or any other smart devices can be built with either wireless or wired information communication technologies (also referred to as communication technology or ICT). In most cases, a wireless ICT and a wired ICT are not mutually compatible.
In some situations, wireless communications suffer intolerable attenuation of signal intensity caused by distances or impenetrable obstacles such as concrete walls. Relays have been attempted in the smart grid but are not really satisfactory because the relays themselves are also subject to the same attenuation. In addition, as the relays have to be awake most of the time and are usually powered by batteries, their battery life will be short.
For these and other reasons, a system and a method having at least one of the following features are desirable: (a) eliminate the need of transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) and still allow communications between smart devices built with non-interoperable ICTs; (b) extend effective range of the wireless communications.